On my list of feminist concerns, being interrupted is a long way behind equal pay for work of equal value, but it’s at the top of my list of damaging workplace micro-aggressions. I loathe it. One of the fringe benefits, as I become more senior and earn roles of increasing authority, is that people interrupt me less. I hope I behave well in return, but that’s not what I’m musing about today. I’m looking back on a series of meetings, all one-on-ones, where I got tired of being interrupted. Coincidentally–I hope–these were all meetings where someone had come to ask me to grant them an exception or reverse a policy decision. They needed a favour, and somehow decided that the best approach was belligerence.

In the first meeting, I quickly decided to explicitly ask my guest to stop interrupting me but, as I expected him to argue that he hadn’t been, I picked up a pen. I began quietly, unobtrusively but visibly jotting down a small tick whenever it happened. I continued to participate in the conversation when he let me, while tracking every time he jumped in on top of my words. I could bide my time to gather evidence. He wasn’t going to stop talking any time soon. But the confrontation I was preparing for didn’t happen. Around the time the tally crept up to five, he stopped interrupting me. I don’t know whether he worked out what I was counting or he finally read the look on my face, but he let me finish my sentences.

A while later, I found myself facing another steamroller one-on-one. After fifteen solid minutes of never being allowed to complete a point, rather than lose my temper–or abandon it–I began another discreet but visible tally. This guy stopped, too.

I think I’ve invented a behaviour-modification method that curbs interruptions.

I am the clod whisperer.

A few data points don’t amount to evidence. But I’m going to keep doing it and see what happens. If you do the same, I hope you’ll share your findings. If you do it in a meeting with me, I hope I’ll smarten up faster than five ticks.